Workout of the Week #79

Welcome to Workout of the Week, number 79. This time we have a five-day-a-week hybrid strength and mass workout.

So what’s the training goal? Remember we talked about strength and mass. That is exactly the training goal. So we want to build strength and muscular hypertrophy—building muscle mass.

Training variables: So it’s a mixed method approach. We use 87.5% to 95% of the one-rep max for the strength building side; 77.5% to 87.5% for the maximum strength/hypertrophy—functional hypertrophy range; and then 67.5% to 80% of the one-rep max for the functional and non-functional hypertrophy. Yeah, so the highest intensity is mainly targeted towards building strength. The second tier is towards building strength and functional hypertrophy. And the last tier is towards just building hypertrophy—a mix of functional and non-functional hypertrophy.

Rep ranges: 1 to 3 for the strength building, 4 to 6 for the hybrid side, and 6 to 10 for the hypertrophy approach. So exertion: hard to near maximum. The training effort is a maximum effort and a repeated effort.

If we look at the exercises, it’s a bro split or muscle group split, and we work chest, back, shoulders, quads, arms, and hamstrings. The exercises are compound exercises and a few isolation exercises. The exercise order goes from the heavy compound to the lighter isolation exercises.

If we look at more training variables, five days a week is the training frequency. It’s a station training, but it includes some complexes—for example, for the arms and the legs.

So how does it look? Here we are, and we’ll jump in.

Here we are inside our Workout of the Week, number 79. You download the PDF. You get an overview of the workout, you get the table of contents, and then you see how it is structured. Yeah, I would suggest three consecutive days, one rest day, and another two consecutive days followed by a rest day. You could also do five days continuously, but again, that’s just how I would do it.

Chest day—Workout One: chest day. Workout Two: back day. Workout Three is the shoulders. Then we have legs. And then we have arms.

How does it look? So here we have our chest day. And then we have three exercises. We do the incline bench press as exercise number one. Then we do the dumbbell bench press, and then we do the flyes. Remember: the first exercise is highest intensity, lowest repetitions. Second exercise is moderate to high intensity, moderate repetitions. And the third exercise, focused on the hypertrophy, is then lower intensity, higher repetitions. Yeah. And the set-rep structure looks pretty much similar.

So three sets of three at 87.5% for the first exercise, equating to an RPE of 8. Three sets of six at 77.5% for the second exercise, also equating to an RPE of 8. And then three sets of 10 at 67.5%, also equating to an RPE of 8 for the third exercise. Yeah. And you can see here we have three minutes rest between the sets of each exercise.

And then we go to Workout Number Two: the back day. So our first exercise is the pull-up. Then we have the bent-over row. And the last one are the dumbbell pullovers. Yeah, it’s a bit of a debate whether the dumbbell pullover is an exercise for the back or for the chest. Depending on how you execute it, it’ll target one or the other, or it’ll target both, but there is an emphasis on one or the other. So this one is a straight-arm dumbbell pullover focusing on a stretch, which then puts the back—the latissimus—at stretch and mainly works the latissimus.

Same set-rep structure here: three sets of three at 87.5%, three sets of six at 77.5%, and three sets of 10 at 67.5%. Yeah.

Then we go to Workout Number Three: the shoulder day. First exercise: shoulder presses. Second exercise: dumbbell lateral raises. Third exercise: the bent-over dumbbell raises. Yeah, same here. Same set and rep structure as before.

And then we go to our leg day. Here we see a slight variation because now we have our front squat as the first exercise, back squat as the second exercise, then we have the RDL, and then we have a complex of leg extensions and leg curls—an antagonistic complex.

So now the question stands out: why front squat first and then back squat? Most often people would gravitate towards doing it the other way around. The answer is pretty simple, and it is because we said the second exercise targets a hybrid of strength and hypertrophy and has higher repetitions. The front squat is not the best exercise for higher repetitions. So that’s why we do the front squat as the first exercise, since front squat can be done very, very well with higher loads: one, two, three reps, maybe four. But it’s not so good for five, six, seven, and higher repetitions. Yeah, therefore: front squat first, then back squat, and then we have RDL for the posterior chain, and then the complex of leg extensions and leg curls.

And Workout Number Five: the arms. Here we have three complexes. Now the sets are reduced to two. So we have six sets in total for each muscle group of the arms—so the biceps group and the triceps group. The first exercises are the heaviest: barbell curls and French press. They can be done heavy. Then we have dumbbell incline curls and the dumbbell overhead extension. And then we have the dumbbell single-arm spider curls—a variation of the concentration curls—and then we have dips. With the dips, we do as many reps as possible, so trying to finish off the triceps at the end of the arm workout.

So if you download this, you get the glossary explaining the terms. You can also read a bit about myself, also what my athletes and former athletes have to say about me, what my mentees and former colleagues have to say about me. And then last but certainly not least, you can subscribe to the membership. Inside the membership—we’ll talk about that in a minute—you get the full four-week periodized program. Yeah, remember I showed you the ranges of reps and ranges of intensities. You didn’t see this here because this is just the first week. Inside the membership, you get the four-week periodized program.

But for now, we move back. Next steps: Download the PDF. Join the membership. Inside the membership, you get the four-week periodized program. Plus, considering we are in week number 79, you get another 78 four-week training programs. And you like and subscribe. You can grab all workouts here—they are free. You can watch the previous workout. And if you haven’t already, you can subscribe.

I’ll see you next week with the next Workout of the Week.